Afternoon Tea

Last week I mentioned that I was going for my first Afternoon Tea experience. I was really looking forward to it, but unfortunately it wasn't very impressive, with a poor and limited selection of sandwiches, cakes which looked like they were straight out of a Tesco packet and being seated at a coffee table which was really uncomfortable for eating. A few days later we went to M&S for a quick lunch and discovered their Afternoon Tea for 2 package - sandwiches, scones, tea and tartlets - for just £10. You choose your sandwiches and scones, and although it was a little plainer with no choice of cakes I think it was good value for money. The only thing I missed was having it arranged nicely on a cake stand like the advertisement, which was a little disappointing, but having read other reviews online it seems that most M&S cafes do serve afternoon tea on a pretty stand.

My first Afternoon Tea Experience

P.s. I've also discovered a love of instagram - better late than never!

George @ Asda Summer Sale!

George @ Asda has just launched its end of summer sale and there are some great bargains to be had! (Don't forget you can also get cashback on your purchases from Top Cashback).

Clockwise: Grey Skater dress £6 - Floral Playsuit £9 - Pink T-shirt £3 - Gladiatory Heels £10  -  Blue Crochet Vest £5

Make £100 in a week challenge - update

About a week ago I blogged about my self-imposed savings challenge to make £100 in a week. Here's how I got on:

Ebay - £7 (I'd intended to list a lot of items but reeeally couldn't be bothered with ebay, it's such hassle!)
Mystery Shopping - £8
Pinecone Survey - £3
Carboot Sale - £60 (after £5 pitch fee and £5 petrol money)

Total - £78

So not quite the £100 I'd set out to make, but equally it's not bad for a few hours of effort! It really does make you think twice about spending £30 on a new dress or top when you know it's resell value when you're bored of it is as little as 50p.

Anyway I'm off to bed for an early-ish night as I'm going for Afternoon Tea tomorrow, I've never been to a proper afternoon tea before so I'm looking forward to it and going to pick out what to wear tonight :)

Red sky at night...

Just a quick post tonight to upload a pic of the pretty pink and purple sky just after the sun had set.

Lush Christmas Preview 2013!

It might be the middle of summer, but I can't be the only one excited about the flurry of Christmas previews popping up online can I?!...

Anyway, yesterday I spotted a picture from the Lush Christmas Preview event posted by the asian beauty blog. The products on offer look better than last year's, when I think I only bought a couple of Christmas Eve Bubble Bars as the novelty of glittery bath bombs which take forever to clean out of your bath has worn off.

However this year sees the introduction of a number of new bath bombs, bubble bars and melts, and rumour has it that a special limited edition Rose Jam shower gel is set to make an appearance too!

I'm glad that the Christmas Eve Bubble Bar is back again, it has a lovely soft jasmine scent and i'm intrigued by the blue shooting star and purple bath bombs. The snowman has been remodeled from previous years and now looks adorable! It's good to see the addition of so many new products, I can't wait to pop into the store when they launch in October and see what smells as good as it looks!

Does anyone else have a Lush Christmas wishlist already or is it just me?!

Another attempt at something creative...the reupholstery edition

Yesterday I decided to reupholster an old dining room chair for my bedroom. I've been looking for a nice bedroom chair for a while, and found one from Next shown below that I like a lot, but at £199 it's a bit out of my price range at the moment, so for now it's been stuck on my computer "bookmarks" and I'm trying my hand at another crafty project.

Mayfair chair @ Next, £199

 If you've read any of my previous posts (including but not limited to the recent two-tiered leaning tower of cake) then you may be sceptical at my chances of success. I am too. But I'm not the sort of person who'd let something like having no upholstery experience or a history of craft-related failures get in my way. (I wish it would). So anyway I've removed the old fabric - which required taking out about 200 staples (my hands still hurt), and made a start on sanding down the wood with an electric sander (at least my aching hands are super smooth now). I keep asking family members to "show me how to sand" as "I don't think I'm doing it right", but unfortunately no one has fallen for it yet, so no doubt it'll be another day or two of sanding before I can prime it. I'll write a proper post up on my upholstery adventure when (and if...) I finish it! In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the wildlife I snapped in the garden whilst I was sanding...

Sanctuary Dreamtime Sleep-in-a-box Kit Review

Just before I went on holiday I mentioned my bargain Boots haul, which included the Sanctuary Dreamtime Sleep-in-a-box kit. I've used it a few times now so thought I'd post a quick review about the set.

The set contains 4 travel sized products; soothing bath float, smoothing silk scrub, 4in1 restoring body elixir and comforting night butter. I haven't used the body elixir yet as you can only use it once, so I'm keeping it for when I have time for a long soak, but the other products have been tested a few times now.

The first thing you notice about the Sleep range is the lovely, calming scent; it manages to be subtle whilst still having a relaxing effect. I would describe the fragrance as a creamy almond and lightly floral scent. The soothing bath float has a slight shimmer and produces a fair amount of bubbles, leaving the water soft and scented.
The smoothing silk scrub is a very lightweight scrub, it doesn't have much "scrub" in it so isn't suitable for proper exfoliating, but that makes sense for a kit which is meant to help you unwind and make you sleepy. It does however leave you skin silky soft, and the gentle scrub is relaxing.
The comforting body butter is the final step to dreamtime, and complements the other products perfectly. It's  luxuriously thick, absorbs quickly, and leaves the lovely scent on your skin.

I really like this kit and it did help send me off to a relaxed slumber, so I would purchase it again, although probably the kit (which retails for £12.50), rather than the full sized products which are about £10 each. I think this will be one for my Christmas wish list this year!

(Another) Primark Haul ♥

Primark is finally getting it's new season stuff in and I had a quick look on Friday to see what I could spot. It might seem a little ironic that yesterdays post was about my self-imposed savings challenge, but the important thing to remember is that these purchases were made before the start of my challenge...

Anyway, here's what I picked up:

This cute skater dress is my favourite purchase and was a bargain at just £8! I think it's really versatile too, the short sleeves and lightweight fabric mean that this dress will be perfect for sunny days (if we get any more of those), but the rich plum and deep navy colours will take it through to autumn. The print also features black in the pattern so I think it could even be worn with black tights in winter and a cardi for a casual shopping trip or lunch out.

 

This jumper was also £8 and has sheer sleeves and pretty pearl detailing around the neck line. The jumper is really soft too which is a plus, as I often find them too itchy to wear. I think this could easily be dressed up or down, and would be good for evenings or layered up in winter. 

I picked up these cute teacup pyjamas for just £4 reduced from £8. There were lots of reductions on pyjamas, jewellery,scarves and home ware, and the assistants were still marking the new sale prices when I was there so it might be worth a look if you're passing.

These Ice Cream pyjamas were another sale bargain at just £2 down from £5! The print reminded me of our holiday and I thought they'd be great for the next one so snapped them up.

The tea-towels were on sale too, reduced from £3 to £1. They're the really soft type, so I think they might be better as hand towels instead. They also had a red floral pattern set on sale too.

And finally, this pack of hair bands was £1. I can't seem to find good quality hairbands often these days. I bought a pretty pack of 6 from Accessorize last month and 2 broke within a day of wearing them, and the third is already wearing out after 3 wears. So I thought I'd get a couple of thicker bands to try instead, hopefully these will be stronger than the thin ones, and the bows add a nice detail too.

Make £100 in a week challenge...

So I seem to have firmly fallen off the frugal track since I came back from holiday...comfort shopping perhaps? Well something has to cheer you up from the rainy (and typical) British summer we're having...but on the plus side I've finally found a little motivation to get back on ebay and had a couple of paid surveys this month. I even sorted out a load of old stuff for a car boot sale, but the heavy rain today meant it was cancelled.
Anyway, I took advantage of the rainy day to have a sort out and I've realised that I still have too much stuff! So initially I was going to do a No Spend Day challenge (the idea being quite simply that you don't spend any money for a week/month/however long). But on reflection I remembered that I have lunch and dinner plans for next week...and I'd hate to fail so soon and become disheartened, so instead I've decided to try something else, make £100 in a week! I'm planning to use ebay, survey websites valued opinions and pinecone, and hopefully a car boot sale to reach my goal in 7 days. I'll update my blog with my progress!

AW 13 High Street Picks

The shops on my high-street have just started getting in their AW collections and I've already picked up a couple of new things from Primark and H&M for my wardrobe. I've had a little look online at what a few of my favourite shops have to offer, and here are some of my favourite outfits...

Nails of The Day...Technic Polishes

I finally got a little bored of my floral nails today, so they've been replaced by a new look made up of two Technic Nail polishes.

The pink polish is a lovely bright shade titled "lychee". I'll be wearing this on my toes for the rest of summer I think, it's so low maintenance - it's quick to apply, it goes on evenly with no streaks and best of all it leaves the nail super smooth and shiny, they almost look like false nails! I still can not believe how fast drying they are, I can be a bit clumsy and usually smudge my nail polish at least once without fail shortly after painting my nails, but this polish manages to dry before even I have time to ruin it : D
The purple colour is actually a translucent purple shade containing lots of multi-coloured glitter, called "Mad Alice". Although the glitter doesn't show very well in the pic, it actually catches the light really nicely, and builds up an opaque background colour in 3 coats. I think this might be an advantage over the clear glitter polish too as it saves you the time of having to apply a base coat!

In other news, and unsurprisingly no doubt, my "reduced spending plan" isn't going so well...(self-explanatory blog posts to follow soon!). Hm.Maybe time for Plan B and a huge ebay clearout?